On optical properties and scintillation performance of emerging Ga2O3: Crystal growth, emission mechanisms and doping strategies

Abstract As an emerging ultra-wide bandgap compound semiconductor, Ga2O3 has attracted rapidly growing interest due to its unique physical properties for harsh condition applications. Compared to Ga2O3 ’s electrical-characteristic based uses, such as power electronics, photodetectors and solar cells, a much less explored area for Ga 2O3 is its promising optical properties and its related scintillation capabilities. Undoped Ga2O3 is a strong scintillator with excellent scintillation characteristics such as fast decay constants and encouraging light yield which is comparable to that of the classic Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) scintillator. The scintillation capability of Ga2O3 can be precisely tuned via a series of approaches including systematic crystal growth control, post-growth annealing, targeted doping, and optimization of operation temperature. Here we summarize exciting progress of Ga2O3 scintillators which have been pursued over the past few years. Our efforts cover a series of growth techniques of Ga2O3 materials as well as discussion of emission mechanisms. Furthermore we dedicate a targeted portion toward the doping strategies to improve the performance of Ga2O3 . A detailed analysis is provided to compare the impact of different dopants . Through these efforts, we hope to provide useful perspectives to help accelerate the development of high performance Ga 2O3 scintillators.